Why Did People Delete My App?

You may have heard the phrase “Move fast, break things.” That’s Mark Zuckerberg’s famous philosophy over at Facebook, in which a company must quickly ship a product and test the market to find product/market fit. It is sometimes said, if the product doesn’t break, you’re probably not shipping it fast enough. However, be careful to find a balance when it comes to mobile because apparently mobile users are not as tolerant.

Compuware, a technology performance research company, released a study on why users are deleting apps after they download them. The study shows that the large majority of times users delete an app, it is because of technical issues. In most cases, the apps are either crashing, slow, or not functioning right. The research found that 56 percent of users have had an app performance issue, and 62 percent of those issues involved a crash or error. A hefty 79 percent report that they will give an app only one or two chances before giving up. If it fails to work correctly, the app will probably not get another chance. Only 16 percent said they will give the app more than 2 tries.

Source: Compuware

This is an important lesson to app developers and companies. The big challenge is to release an app quickly but at the same time make sure it works great. There is little room for mistakes. This research shows how important the user’s first impression for an app is. Considering the abundance of apps in the marketplace, users have a very low patience and tolerance for buggy ones. If the user experience is not great and it doesn’t work right the first one or two tries, you may not be able to acquire the customer. There will likely not be a third try. You might say that app downloads are somewhat similar to dating. First impressions can matter quite a bit.

Vi Tran
Contributing Editor
Lover of all things marketing, tech, and startups related. Currently she's a writer at CircleClick and MobileFOMO. Previously, she worked at ApartmentList.com, Esurance, and 500 Startups. Follow me on twitter @misspran